Sammy Hagar's quest for a LaFerrari, step 1: Off to Maranello

We're following rock 'n' roll legend Sammy Hagar as he becomes one of 499 people in the world to own a LaFerrari. Here's the first leg of the journey — Ed.

As odd couples go, you can’t imagine a more different duo. Sammy Hagar and Piero Ferrari. The Red Rocker and The Legend’s Son. Separated by language and a continent, but bonded by a passion for the same man-made piece of automotive magic.

The meeting was pure serendipity, but perhaps also fated. Hagar was dining at Il Cavallino, the famous restaurant just outside the gates of the Ferrari factory, when he spotted a distinguished man in glasses. “He had the same bearing as The Old Man,” Hagar says, using the affectionate term for the late Enzo Ferrari.

A chat was hastily arranged. But that’s getting ahead of our tale.

Hagar’s love of Ferraris started on a curb in Boston in the ‘70s, when fellow musician J. Geils pulled over to pick up a friend and promptly sped off in a fog of glorious 250 Lusso exhaust. “That was it for me,” Hagar, 67, recalls. “I had to have one.”

And so he has — in fact, many Prancing Horses have romped in and out of his life over the years. The collection grew as the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer saw his finances mushroom after fronting Van Halen in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and positively explode after he sold his Cabo Wabo Tequila company to Skyy/Campari a decade back.

Today, a select half-dozen Ferraris stalk his studio/garage just north of San Francisco, including the Berlinetta Boxer that starred in his “I Can’t Drive 55” video and a factory-customized black with red stripe 599 GTB. But despite his sheetmetal addiction to the Maranello marque, Hagar had never visited the automaker’s fabled factory just outside Modena.

Until now. Hagar recently returned from a trip to Italy with his wife Kari, where they lock in the order details for Hagar’s $1.4 million Ferrari LaFerrari.

The company’s oddly-named-but-who-cares supercar boasts nearly 1,000-hp, derived from a Formula One-inspired brew of hybrid technologies and a 6.3-liter V-12. Only 499 will be made. After putting down a six-figure deposit at his local Ferrari of San Francisco dealership, Hagar was informed that expediting the order meant traveling to Maranello to be custom-fit for the driver’s seat and to select his colors and interior materials.

Jet-lagged but excited, Hagar and his wife presented themselves at the factory. “As big as that place is, it feels so private and so protected,” Hagar recalls. “It’s like visiting so medical lab. Everything is so clean and orderly.”

The Hagars were taken to a special area where LaFerraris are being produced largely by hand. Five cars surrounded them in different states of undress, from one that was a mere carbon-fiber shell to another complete with seats to a fully built model.

A red one beckoned. The scissor door was raised on the driver’s side of a red LaFerrari and Hagar hopped in.